Fennecs Predicted Lineup Against Liberia

Fortunately for Petkovic, the Fennecs will play another easy match in capital Monrovia, against the weak Liberian team. Hopefully, if the Algerian team loses, in Liberia, it will not shake its chances of qualifying comfortably for AFCON 2025 which will be played in Morocco.

Coach Petkovic would have lived a nightmare after missing players before the training camp, including Ounas, Amoura and others. The list increased with the addition of the absentees Ait Nouri, Boudaoui, Mahrez, Aouar and Bennacer. Hence, the coach finds himself with few options, and it is an opportunity imposed on him to introduce new players in various positions.

In light of these significant absences, Petkovic will do his best with his options, which are not qualitative, but what matters is winning, and it is an easy task considering the weakness of the Liberian team, which was a shadow of itself in Lomé, Togo, despite its draw there.

In goal, Petkovic will not change the ready Mandrea, with a very small possibility of including goalkeeper Oukidja who seems unhappy with his return to the bench. In defence, Youcef Atal will likely have the honour of starting on the right, with renewed confidence in the hard-working Hadjam on the left, while Bensebaini and Mandi will be in central defence.

In the absence of the duo Aouar and Boudaoui and the insistence on not calling up Farès Chaibi, the task will be left to Zerouki and Sayoud, who may appear in his first official match with the Fennecs at the age of thirty-four, in the strangest thing that has happened to a talented Algerian player, who has roamed the football fields between Egypt, Algeria, Kuwait, Bulgaria and Saudi Arabia, and between the small clubs, but his dream remained to wear the Algerian team’s jersey, as he did not realize his dream until this very advanced age.

As for the front line, the departure of Riyad Mahrez will pave the way for Hadj Moussa to play for the first time in weather conditions he has never experienced before, as a starter, or he may be replaced by Yassine Benzia with his experience, and Petkovic will choose between Baghdad Bounedjah and Amine Gouiri, and give the position of left winger without thinking or reverence to Said Benrahma, who was the best in the match against Equatorial Guinea in Oran.

No one imagined the amount of problems and ambiguity in the Fennecs’ home as it is happening now. Fog is a feature of their journey, despite the ease of the matches. No one answered the reason for the absence of the youngest players in the team, Fares Chaibi and Badredine Bouanani, and no one explained a convincing reason for the departure of Riyad Mahrez and Houssem Aouar, the best players in the Algerian team’s victorious second-half of the Oran match.

It seems that the rift is bigger than a misunderstanding between a Swiss coach who is still searching for himself and the language of communication with his players, as he is on the verge of the sixth match, and some players are said to refuse to be on the bench, but in the case of Mahrez, the starter and captain, and Aouar, the starter, things are different, without the FAF president Walid Sadi containing the situation, or revealing it to the public.